Thomas Abberbury

  Noted events in his life were:

• Background Information. ¹¹⁸⁷
Thomas de Lewknor was dead by 1305, [Eynsham Cart. i. 349] and by 1307 his widow Lucy had apparently conveyed the manor of Souldern to Master Thomas de Abberbury, who died in possession in that year. [Cal. Inq. p.m. iv, p. 288] The Abberbury family took its name from Adderbury, but was subsequently most closely connected with Donnington (Berks.), another of Thomas's acquisitions. Thomas was succeeded in turn by his brother Walter and by his nephew Richard. John de Lewknor, possibly a son of Lucy and Thomas, and a certain William de Tingewike entered the manor by force. Later William obtained a formal grant of it from John and died in possession in 1316. [Cal. Inq. p.m. v, pp. 414\endash 15; cf. Feud. Aids, iv. 169] Richard de Abberbury had regained Souldern by 1323, [Cal. Inq. Misc. ii, p. 209] and held it at his death in 1333, when it passed to his son John. [Cal. Inq. p.m. vii, p. 390] John died without issue in 1346, and Souldern passed to his uncle Thomas, [Ibid. viii, p. 470] perhaps the Thomas de Abberbury who held lands in Wootton in 1316.[Berks. Arch. Jnl. iv. 55] Thomas was succeeded by his son Richard, the most distinguished member of the family, by 1362. [Inq. a.q.d. (P.R.O. L. and I. xxii), ii. 525] Richard was a knight of the shire for Oxfordshire in 1373 and 1387, and a royal servant. He is best known for his rebuilding of Donnington castle and his endowment of Donnington Hospital. [Brookes, Steeple Aston, 57\endash 63; V.C.H. Berks. ii. 93; iv. 91] Both the hospital and the Crutched Friars of Donnington received grants of lands and rents in Souldern from Sir Richard. [Cal. Pat. 1391\endash 6, 369; 1396\endash 9, 469; Inq. a.q.d. (P.R.O. L. and I.), ii. 706] The latter was dead by 1401[Cal. Pat. 1399\endash 1401, 486] and was probably succeeded first by his brother Thomas, who had lands in Souldern in 1399, [Ibid. 1396\endash 9, 469.] and then by Thomas's son Richard. [Ibid. 1446\endash 52, 169]

The younger Richard married Alice, widow of Edmund Danvers of Chilton (Berks.), but had no children. By 1415 his heir presumptive was probably Sir Richard Arches, the son of his sister Lucy, [Brookes, Steeple Aston, 68, citing C 1/29/62\endash 63] to whom with other feoffees he conveyed Souldern manor in that year. Richard Abberbury, on the grounds of a defect in his uncle's grant, seized the Crutched Friars' Souldern lands and in 1448 granted them to William de la Pole, Duke of Suffolk, [Cal. Pat. 1446\endash 52, 169] on whose death in 1450 they were put in custody of his widow Alice. Sir Richard Arches, whose father was perhaps Simon Arches of Waddesdon (Bucks.), [V.C.H. Bucks. iv. 86] died in 1417. His only son John died without issue, and Souldern manor descended to his daughter Joan and her husband Sir John Dynham. (fn. 99) Sir John died in 1458 [Complete Peerage, iv. 377] and Joan retained the manor [e.g. Cal. Pat. 1485\endash 94, 3] as her own inheritance until her death in 1497, when she was succeeded by her son, another Sir John Dynham, who died in 1501.[Complete Peerage. iv. 378]

The Dynham estates were then divided among four coheirs, Sir John's two surviving sisters Elizabeth and Joan, and his nephews, Sir Edmund Carew, son of Margery Dynham and Sir John Carew, and Sir John Arundell of Lanheme, son of Katherine Dynham and Sir Thomas Arundell.

~The History of the County of Oxford, Vol. VI, pp. 301-312